Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Usually, if someone were playing a word-association game with me, and presented me with the words Hand-Foot-Mouth, the first things that would come to mind would be: Praise God in worship and honor him with our mouths shouting out his glory, with our hands lifted up in praise, and our feet dancing in his presence.

But today? I would say: Blisters in mouth and down throat, bumps on hands, and on feet too. Some red bumps creeping up legs and arms, and some on f@nny, too. And THAT'S not FUNNY. Bumps turn into blisters. High fevers, long naps, interrupted sleep at night, screams from pain in mouth.

It has been a long weekend. Over the last two weeks, Hunter hadn't been "acting right" and in the last week he had some odd bumps pop up on his face. He has pretty smooth, white skin, and to see bumps that turn into blisters concerned me. My first thoughts were chicken pocks. I took him to the doctor Thursday evening, and two more times in a ROW before we finally got a diagnosis... Hand-Foot-Mouth Disease. And sadly, there's NOTHING more they can do about it than Tylenol or Motrin. It just has to run its course.

Poor baby! He complained that his head hurt, his ears hurt, his neck hurt, his mouth hurt, his f@nny hurt... he was "sick and hurtling." But praise God, he's feeling better today. 3-1/2 days of high fevers, and they finally broke on Monday. The doctor said he wouldn't be contagious any more after going 24 hours without a fever, but he's still not himself so he stayed home yesterday and today. Tomorrow, he goes to day care, and I know he'll have a great time with all the kids, but I'll miss not being at home cuddling with him.

On another note, its kind of nice to know Hunter's pediatrician's office has 4 locations, and is open every day of the year except for Christmas. Sunday's too (which is one of the days we took him in)! We just changed over to them after a disappointing 2 years with another pediatrician, so its nice to know I can get him in at almost any time.

Well, hope you all had a better Memorial Day than I did. My parents were here visiting from North Carolina, and my Dad rode in the Rolling Thunder parade in D.C. -- I was so proud of him.

I'll be catching up with your blogs and my emails in the next few days.

5 comments:

Most of the time I cannot relate to the childhood woes because for some reason neither of my kids had many of them. However HFM disease was one of the few The Boy got. Yeah, it sucked for a while, but mercy, he was like a new child when he was on the mend!

Hope he's all better and that you won't have to use those new pediatricians any time soon.

You know I have had a disappointing 2 years with Miller and Madison's pediatrician. Actually his staff too. But I'm chicken to change. His group is some of the best in Western Ky and it scares me to venture out. How did you do it? So what do you have planned with Hunter this summer for fun? I need ideas....I so hope he feels better by the weekend.